Cache Size - Optimum

What is the optimum cache size to set on the Preferences/Network tab page?

Why is that size best?

Thanks

I'd say as big as possible - if you have enough disk space and a fast processor, make it maximum.

It would probably help if you gave details of your computer.

If there was an answer to that, it would just be hardcoded in the client.

While a too-large cache will be a tad slower than a small, lean-and-mean, it will always be faster than downloading things, so "as big as you can spare" is generally a safe bet.
Of course, at some point it reaches a level where it remembers the sim you were in 3 months ago and will never return to, but that depends hugely on how you use SL.

Of course, running the cache from a fast, defragmented drive is preferable, but usually not something you can really do all that much about.

The only size options for the cache are 'tiny" and "really tiny". I've got a couple of 40GB drives I can throw on my computer for the cache, but no....

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10224

I max it out and leave it there. As long as you don't set it unreasonably small, I don't believe it makes much difference.

Details of my computer in case they are meaningful to anyone about my optimum cache size--not a powerhouse as you can see

CPU: Intel Core Series Processor (1662 MHz)
Memory: 2047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3, v.3311 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 x86/SSE2
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 8.261-060523a1-033841C-Dell
OpenGL Version: 2.0.5883 WinXP Release

The most important detail is... how much disk space do you have spare?

Black, medium sized floor box, flat screen monitor......:lol:

Funny thing with me is, I set it around 500 MB... and every single viewer ignores that setting so I regularly clear cache when it reaches around 2 GB...

BTW is there a way besides opening up explorer or my computer and actually selecting the cache folder to show the size a way to tell how large your cache has become?

Oh, you are lucky Conifer, I do everything on a laptop.

In preferences, there's an option on where to put the cache. If you have an extra disk (not just an extra partition on your system disk) you'll probably get a perf improvement by moving it off your boot disk...

Midnight - check preferences. In the Network tab, I think. That will show you where the cache is.

large as you canif you don't have issues with it becoming corrupt, or you want to limit bandwidth consumption, smaller if you tend to have frequent borks that require clearing the cache to fix (just remember that it's size also adds a little to your start up time)

@Sindy
actually if you partition the drive in chunks sized to each platter you can still see some improvement, it'll just be bottle-necked if your system is very active on system drive reads.

Is that only if you have "clear cache on start" selected?




drive reads ARE the reason for having the cache on a second disc. (You may also want to set your system "tmp" and "temp" directories to a secondary drive as well). Still, there's nothing quite like more system RAM

What actually is a cache? Is it all your hair and stuff?
Please dont tell me something I didnt realize - like someone did with groups and hiding them.
And please simplify coz I havent a clue about drives and temps and gigs and gogs.

It's all the stuff SL has had to pull off the network from LL servers recently.

The idea is that it's faster/cheaper to stash stuff on your local hard disk than it is to keep asking the LL servers for another copy.

Easy to see this in action. Go to some region somewhere and hang out for a few minutes until everything rezzes. Relog to the same spot without clearing the cache and notice how long it takes stuff to rez again. The relog with a cache clear and see how long it takes.

One of the big problems with the way the SL cache works (/me cues Argent and the squids) is that computer file systems - the way your PC stores stuff on your hard disk - really aren't good at having tons & tons of files in a single directory and that's the way SL wants to do things. As you increase the size of your cache, this problem can get worse.

A couple years ago, LL changed the viewer so you could have really big cache sizes - 30gb or something like that. For a lot of machines, especially older ones or ones without lots of free disk space, the bigger cache size actually made performance worse. They pulled that change out not too long afterwards..

It's that and more, it's everything that you've recently seen or been close to in-world. So it doesn't have to keep getting downloaded from the server over and over again.

And, again, the JIRA to replace the texture cache with a better one is:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10224

Vote for it!

i am convinced it doesnt matter as the cache seems to not work anyway.

It's that and more, it's everything that you've recently seen or been close to in-world. So it doesn't have to keep getting downloaded from the server over and over again.

And, again, the JIRA to replace the texture cache with a better one is:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-10224

Vote for it!

That's what I tell them too - as long as they keep putting dollar bills into my garter.

Yoiks. Where have you been all my life?

nope... that would be the "initilizing texture cache" message that takes longer as you have more in there..


sorry I should've said system partition.... most newer drives have independent read/write arms for each platter, so in some cases reading multiple platters is actually faster than the transfer speed from the drive.... if one platter isn't being read the others have more available bandwidth without actually having a separate drive... it's a poorfolks optimization to be sure. more system ram, and properly separated content drives are MUCH better. (I run static files on one drive (including profiles), system on another, programs on a third, and temp on a small forth... static files are mirrored, nothing else, though I save installers there too)

Sindy, -smiles- thank you....
Yes I know where my cache is on my hard drive. What I meant is there some other way to discover its current size besides going to a hard drive and selecting the folder with your cursor to read the size? As in something in the Viewer itself?

Quite right too!

Just because you have a small screen, that's no reason for a reduced price, is it?

There was one release, don't remember which one, where I specifically noticed that it grew much much larger than what I had specified. I have not seen it happen lately though.